What is Frontier Technology?
Last week I gave my predictions for frontier technology in 2024, and I will continue to refer to frontier technology on many future occasions. Therefore, I think it is imperative to take the time to define frontier technology.
There are several definitions already in the public domain:
· The World Economic Forum (WEF) defines it as “technologies that help push research and development further into as-yet-unexplored realms of biology, energy, computing, and intelligence.”
· The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) defines it as “the intersection of radical scientific breakthrough and real-world implementation.”
· The United Nations (UN) defines it as “a broad spectrum of interrelated and interdependent technologies that are fundamentally transforming the world.”
· The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines it as “technology that will ‘reshape industry and communications and provide urgently needed solutions to global challenges like climate change and have the potential to displace existing processes’.”
· Other definitions across the internet include “the industries pushing the boundaries of technological capabilities and adoption,” “technological advancements that have passed through the research and development (R&D) phase but have not yet been mass marketed nor adopted by the mainstream,” and “emerging technologies that will reshape communications and industry standards by displacing existing business processes and providing urgently needed solutions to global challenges.”
Examining each these definitions separately, there are several limitations embedded in some of these definitions, such as frontier technology (1) only encompassing R&D processes, (2) only occurring in, or being relevant to, certain industries, and (3) requiring a “breakthrough” to emerge. However, examining all these definitions as a whole, there are also a few common themes that emerge:
· Novelty. These technologies are different than what has existed before.
· Global Impact. These technologies can have wide-spread, even global, implications.
· Requires R&D. Research and/or development, in some capacity, is a necessary preliminary step to create a frontier technology.
To further refine these themes into the attributes of a frontier technology, it is useful to introduce a few more concepts:
R&D vs. Knowledge Generation. Components of R&D, notably basic and applied research, are formal processes for generating knowledge. The third component of R&D, development, is aimed at creating new technology, products, and processes, (often using the knowledge generated from research), however the process of development can generate new knowledge as well. Knowledge generation is not limited to R&D activities, as new knowledge can also be generated through informal processes, such as interactions with customers, conversations between experts from different fields, or lessons learned from failed businesses. It is the generation of new knowledge, whether through formal or informal processes, that creates the ideas that lead to new frontier technologies. Thus, while the Requires R&D theme is accurate, due to the necessity of development in the creation of new technologies, the role of knowledge generation is much broader, and not limited to R&D activities.
Invention vs. Innovation. While sometimes used interchangeably, there is an important distinction between invention and innovation. Invention is the creation of a new product, technology, or process. In contrast, innovation is the application of a new product, technology, or process to an operational use case. Both are consistent with the theme of Novelty, but only innovation has the potential to be consistent with the theme of Global Impact, because real-world application of novelty is needed for impact to occur.
Technology and Innovation Diffusion. For an innovation to actually have a Global Impact, it must undergo a diffusion process, by which it spreads through the population. There are many theories of technology and innovation diffusion, which are beyond the scope of this article, but in general, specific attributes of an innovation, the level of knowledge relevant to that innovation within the population, the presence of existing solutions, and whether complementary technologies are needed to facilitate adoption of the innovation, all play a role in whether an innovation diffuses through a population, how quickly it diffuses, and how widespread the innovation becomes. This is an essential process for an innovation’s impact to become widespread, and therefore, is a prerequisite to the Global Impact theme of frontier technology.
General Purpose Technologies (GPT)* and the Technology Lifecycle. Lastly, technology lifecycles are also important to understand to better define frontier technology. There are three levels of technology cycles, which are nested within one another, (1) “product cycles,” (2) “platform cycles,” and (3) “major technology cycles,” initiated by the introduction of a general purpose technology (GPT). Product cycles occur at the company-level and are rapid iterations of the features of a product in order to facilitate further diffusion of the product into a population. Platform cycles typically occur in a cross-organization environment, wherein knowledge generated from product cycles leads to the identification of specific technological advances needed to further improve a product for its application to new use cases. Major technology cycles are typically sector - or even society - wide, whereby a new technology area is introduced, diffuses through a population, and makes obsolete existing technologies in the process. It is these major technology cycles where the process of “creative destruction” is most pronounced.
Each of these technology cycles drive the process of the other cycles: Many product cycles create platform cycles. Many platform cycles create major technology cycles. Major technology cycles drive new platform cycles, which drive new product cycles. The cluster of technologies that drive major technology cycles are referred to at GPTs, with the examples of electricity and computers often given to demonstrate the scope of GPTs. Both of which are technology areas that transformed every industry and sector in our society, to the point where they became essential utilities in modern society, and would not be considered frontier technology today.
*GPT in this context stands for “general purpose technology” and should not be confused with GPT in the artificial intelligence (AI) context, such as ChatGPT, which stands for “generative pre-trained transformers.” While AI is a general purpose technology, these two uses of the acronym GPT are unrelated.
Applying the above concepts to the frontier technology themes derived from existing definitions, the themes can be expanded upon to generate 3 attributes of a frontier technology:
· Novel. Novelty is a key attribute of frontier technology, however the novelty should not be limited to just technologies; new products and processes also drive the transformative nature of frontier technology, because using an existing technology in a new way, can be just as impactful as introducing a new technology. Thus, perhaps, frontier innovation would be a better term to encapsulate the intent behind the term frontier technology.
· Wide-Spread Adoption. To clarify the initial theme of Global Impact into a specific attribute of frontier technology, “global” is switched to “wide-spread,” as truly global impact is not essential, but wide-spread impact within a given population is essential. In addition, the term “impact” is switched to “adoption,” which is an essential prerequisite to impact., Thus, a frontier technology is an innovation that may be able to diffuse through a population via wide-spread adoption of the innovation.
· Requires Knowledge Generation. The initial theme of “requires R&D” has been widened to “requires knowledge generation,” meaning that frontier technologies do not emerge out of nothing, but result from the generation of new knowledge, often involving – but not limited to – R&D activities.
Beyond the attributes that can be derived from the prior definitional themes, two more attributes are needed to account for the role of innovation diffusion and technology cycles:
· Interdependent. Since diffusion of a frontier technology is essential for the technology to have wide-spread adoption and impact, it is important to also consider the hurdles to achieving that diffusion. No frontier technology exists in a vacuum, and the ability for a frontier technology to be adopted by a population depends on a myriad of factors, including the success, adoption, and progression of other frontier technologies. Thus, frontier technologies are interdependent, and predicting their diffusion is challenging due to the complexities created by this interdependence.
· Transformative. Lastly, frontier technologies are transformative, disrupting, altering, or otherwise changing the status quo. Frontier technologies are the innovations that drive major technology cycles, that transform entire sectors, and possibly the whole of society. Frontier technology contains the next generation of GPTs, that will fundamentally alter the world as we know it. However, these major technology cycles and the diffusion process of GPTs are complex, long-time scale processes that transcend any one company. The study of frontier technology is not limited to the study of these macro-level trends, but also includes the meso- and micro-level trends occurring in the platform and product cycles that ultimately drive major technology cycles and GPTs.
With these 5 attributes of frontier technology established, I will attempt to generate my own definition:
Frontier technology is an ever-evolving set of novel and interdependent technologies, products, and processes, derived from the generation of new knowledge, which over time may achieve wide-spread adoption and have a transformative impact at a sector – or even society – level scale.
Within this definition, the most controversial word to me is “may.” Why not use “will” or “should” or something that implies there is a more definitive end-state of frontier technology? The reason I specifically chose “may” is because it encapsulates the uncertainty that everyone working in frontier technology has experienced. It is impossible to know a priori which frontier technologies will diffuse through a population, achieve wide-spread adoption, and ultimately have a transformative impact. Despite this uncertainty, the goal for any innovation considered frontier technology is to shed this moniker, and become just part of how our world works.